In opening remarks at her confirmation hearing on Jan. 13, President-elect Barack Obama’s Secretary of State designate Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations committee she would use the office to shape foreign policy that would fight climate change.

“You Mr. Chairman [Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.] were among the very first in a growing chorus from both parties to recognize that climate change is an unambiguous security threat,” Clinton said. “At the extreme it threatens our very existence. But well before that point, it could well incite new wars of an old kind over basic resources – like food, water and arable land.”

According to Clinton, the upcoming 2009 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Copenhagen will be the stage for the next opportunity for the United States to ratify a climate change treaty like the Kyoto Protocol, which was rejected by the U.S. Senate 95-0 in 1997.